Evanston, Ill. - The Nebraska
baseball team improved 3-1 in Big Ten Conference play with a 7-4 win over the
Northwestern Wildcats on Friday afternoon. Now 19-9 overall on the season, the
Huskers got three hits and two RBI's each from Richard Stock and Pat Kelly,
including a triple from Stock and a solo home run from Kelly.

Tom
Lemke started for the Huskers and went 6.0 innings in the win to improve to 3-2
on the season. The junior righty gave up three runs on the day, all in the
third inning, while putting up zeros in five of his six innings.

After
the Huskers went down in order in the first, including two strikeouts, Nebraska
came out swinging in the second and scored two runs on three hits and one
Northwestern error. Kash Kalkowski opened the inning with a single and scored
on Stock's first triple of the year into the right field corner. Josh Scheffert
then came to the plate for the first time in four games due to a hamstring
injury and drove in his 16th RBI of the season on grounder that Zach Morton was
unable to handle at second base, allowing Scheffert to reach. Cory Burleson
followed with a double of the right-field wall to give NU runners and second
and third with no outs, but the Huskers bats went silent, as Wildcat starter
Francis Brooke retired the next three batters he faced to end the Huskers'
scoring threat.

The
Wildcats answered in the bottom of the third and took a 3-2 lead with three
runs on four hits. Nine-hitter Hamilton Wise led off with a walk and the next
four Wildcats singled to plate three runs. With runners on first and second and
no out, Lemke threw out the lead runner at third base on a sacrifice bunt, got
a groundout and notched his first strikeout of the game to get out of the
inning.

Lemke
bounced back in the bottom of the fourth and retired the Wildcats in order to
give the Huskers some momentum into the fifth, which they used to score two
runs and retake the lead, 4-3.

Kelly
started the fifth by tying the game with his fourth home run of the season on a
shot over the wall in left-center field. The Huskers then loaded the bases on a
hit-by-pitch of Kale Kiser, a bunt single by Michael Pritchard and a walk to Rich
Sanguinetti. Brooke retired the next two batters he faced before Stock drove in
Pritchard with an infield single, but no other Huskers came to the plate, as
Kalkowski over ran second base, forcing Sanguinetti into a pickle and he was
eventually tagged out to end the inning.

It
looked like the Huskers would go away quietly in the sixth, but Kelly reach on
a two-out single and Kiser was hit for the second straight inning to pick up
his 41st-career HBP to put runners and first and second for Pritchard. A
left-handed batter, Pritchard delivered an opposite-field double to the
left-center-field gap to score Kelly, but Kiser was cut down at the plate
trying to score from first base to end the inning.

Tyler
King took the mound for the Huskers in the bottom of the seventh and got the
first two batters he faced, but gave up back-to-back two-out doubles, the first
two extra-base hits of the game for the Wildcats. Head Coach Darin Erstad went
to Dylan Vogt with the game-tying run on second, but Vogt didn't have to retire
a batter as Burleson threw out Geoff Rowan on a steal attempt at third to end
the inning, his 13th runner caught stealing of the year in 21 attempts.

The
Huskers got the run back and added another in the top of the eighth off three
hits. Stock led off the inning with a single and scored after a pair of one-out
singles from Burleson and Kelly. Burleson then scored on a sacrifice fly by
Kiser to put the Huskers up 7-4 going into the bottom of the eighth, where Vogt
retired the Wildcats in order.

Erstad
turned the ball to Travis Huber in the ninth and he gave up two singles, but
posted back-to-back strikeouts to end the game and pick up his fifth save of
the season.

The
Huskers return to Rocky Miller Park tomorrow at 1 p.m. for game two of its
series with Northwestern. Sophomore Jon Keller will try to move to 4-0 on the
season, while the freshman Brandon Magallones will take his perfect 4-0 record
to the mound for the Wildcats.